Royal Prison of Erebus
The Royal Prison of Erebus is a highly secretive prison where the Four Legendary Kingdoms send their enemies and traitors for imprisonment. History Early History At some point in Earth's past, the Super-Ancient Beings established a source of, or began sourcing from the location, the mysterious substance known as greystone powder in a cavern a mile below the surface of a section of land near the coastline of what would later become Algeria. Inside this cavern, they built a castle entirely out of solidified liquid stone and left a pit of the substance on the cavern floor. When the Super-Ancients began creating a series of trials for a later race of sentient people, they decided that the punishment for failing the Trial of the Cities would be the depletion of the Earth's water, and arranged it so that is the trial were not fulfilled, the deposit of greystone powder in the cavern, as well as five other deposits of the substance, would be opened and exposed to the oceans. After the Ancients were gone and the group of humans that would become known as the Four Legendary Kingdoms were gifted with their knowledge, and later found the cavern. Due to having many enemies and the occasional traitor, the Four Kingdoms decided to use the remote location of the cavern to serve as a prison for which they could send them as punishment, and so the Royal Prison of Erebus was established. Though the important role of Governor of Erebus was considered to be one that, in certain circumstances, could be as powerful as that of one of the Four Kings, the remote location of the prison made it a largely undesired role. To maintain the secrecy of Erebus, few records about it were made, and slaves were brought in to serve as guards, however their descendants were raised around Erebus and never allowed to leave, so that only the Governor of Erebus who controlled them knew of the Royal Prison's exact location. For the royals that didn't know of Erebus's location, rumours persisted and suggested that it was somewhere in the Mediterranean. Over the years, the greystone powder was mined from its deposit with the Erebus cavern, and passed on to the Four Kingdoms and some of their servants for their own purposes. Following the battle of the Three Kings in 1578, King Sebastian I was taken by the royal jailer and imprisoned at Erebus. After his betrothed cousin Izabella became a minor queen to another royal family, she employed a servant to find out what had happened to Sebastian. This servant discovered the mine and Erebus, but elected not to dare a rescue and so departed rather than share the former King's fate. Towards the end of the 20th century, as the previous King of Underworld grew older and increasingly aware that his eldest son Anthony would succeed him, he arranged for his second son Yago to be appointed the role of Governor of the Royal Prison of Erebus. Yago thus set up his home within the cavern's castle, and set about capturing and imprisoning many enemies and traitors of the Four Kingdoms at Erebus. Due to his and his predecessors' use of slaves as guards, he soon inherited the title of the Slave King. During the course of the years he served as the Governor of Erebus, Yago learned how the mysterious greystone powder and liquid stone within the cavern both worked, and came up with a method of entombing prisoners in such a way that that were trapped painfully within the stone. Using this new method of imprisonment, Yago had the half-encased prisoners set together in what he called the Wall of Misery. Through this form of binding, the prisoners were left in constant agony and forced to soil themselves, which created a constant wailing in the Royal Prison, and while this would have annoyed most, Yago came to enjoy listening to the prisoners' wails of agony. Yago also updated the mine to become an automated operation, adding an elevator for the vehicles to be carried into the cavern on and had a metal shed built over the top of it to hide Erebus from satellite view. After Yago became friends with the King of Land, Vladimir "Carnivore" Romanov, he invited the Russian royal to Erebus and showed him how the Four Kingdoms' enemies were imprisoned upon the Wall of Misery, inspiring Carnivore to create his own method of imprisonment as equally horrific. After cannibalising the family of the royals he served, Rubles was captured and entombed at Erebus, where he quickly fell into greater madness and annoyed his fellow prisoners with his constant ramblings and singing. A few years before 2016, the after the Knights of the Golden Eight captured a Swiss banker who had been embezzling money from a European royal family, they apparently reached a deal with Yago to hand him over for imprisonment at Erebus. However, the bounty hunter Aloysius Knight had managed to spray the banker with MicroDots before his capture, and traced his location to Erebus. After a quick survey revealed the banker was more than a mile below the surface, Knight decided to abandon the matter, but memorised the location. The Three Secret Cities After the conclusion of the Great Games of the Hydra, which ended with the deaths of several royals, including the Kings of Sea and Sky, the Four Kingdoms were furious with the disarray that Jack West Jr had caused them, and quickly agreed to have the Yago hunt down Jack and Anthony (the latter for both failing to secure a King of Kings during the Great Games and for siding with Jack) and imprison them at Erebus as punishment. Upon capturing his brother in New York, Yago brought Hades to Erebus and had the former King of Underworld imprisoned on the Wall of Misery. While discussing their next move in the Trial of the Cities in London, Jack asked Iolanthe Compton-Jones if she knew where Erebus was so that they could rescue Hades. However, the Keeper of Royal Records knew only rumours, and since no one sent to Erebus had ever been seen again, suggested that they forget about trying to stage a rescue. When Jack was captured by Yago a short time later, however, Zoe Kissane managed to convince Iolanthe to help her and Mae Merriweather research potential places Erebus was located at to get Jack back. Upon landing at the nearby airstrip, Yago and his men brought Jack to the vehicle elevator at the mine, and took the prisoner down into the cavern that was the Royal Prison. Yago delighted in welcoming Jack to the prison as the Australian took in the liquid stone pool, castle and the Wall of Misery. Yago proceeded to have Jack entombed in liquid stone and set upon the Wall next to Hades. After a sleepless first night, Yago allowed the Trismagi Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster to come to Erebus to see the imprisoned Jack. After discovering a letter Izabella's servant had sent to her with details regarding Sebastian's prison, Zoe, Iolanthe and Mae determined that Erebus was located in Algeria. Zoe recruited Stretch and Pooh Bear to assist her in breaking Jack out, and the trio infiltrated the area by swimming up the coastline in the hopes of avoiding any detection systems. However, Yago and his guards were alerted to their presence via underwater thermal sensors, but decided to allow them to continue their approach in the interest of seeing if they could breach Erebus's perimeter. Zoe, Stretch and Pooh managed to breach the cavern and reach Jack, only for Yago and his men to reveal their presence and had the attempted rescuers lower their weapons, taunting Jack with the fact that there was no escape from Erebus. However, Knight, having been requested by his ally Schofield to help out Jack, arrived above Erebus and parachuted down the elevator shaft. Breaching the Erebus cavern, Knight set off chaff grenades and quickly brought down the guards and injured Yago. Once Knight and Jack's friends released Jack and Hades, Zoe questioned if they should release the other prisoners, though Hades disuaded them by pointing out Rubles's crimes as an example of all of the prisoners. Instead, they set Yago in a stone slab of his own and set his up on the Wall of Misery, and Jack told Yago to enjoy the new view of his realm as they departed and switched off the cavern's lights, leaving the Governor of the Royal Prison of Erebus wailing alongside his prisoners. A few days later, Jack realised that the deposit of greystone powder at Erebus was one of six such deposits around the world, and that if Trial of the Cities wasn't completed, the deposit would be exposed to the oceans, and in turn begin drying them up. Luckily, the danger was averted with the trial's completion, and the Royal Prison's greystone deposit was left as it was. Features Wall of Misery . Greystone Powder Mine Within the cavern of Erebus is a seven square-kilometer deposit of greystone powder, though whether or not it is a natural deposit is unknown. When the Four Legendary Kingdoms discovered the Erebus cavern and the greystone, they allowed a mining operation to begin, which has evolved over the centuries to become a modern automated mine. Liquid Stone Pool . Castle Within the cavern resides a castle which Yago claims was built by the Super-Ancients. The entire building is made entirely out of solidified liquid stone, and appears to have been shaped out of a single formation so that there are no seams. Yago uses the castle as his private residence at Erebus. Trivia . Category:Locations Category:Prisons Category:The Three Secret Cities Category:Mines